U.S. politics and this election have become increasingly volatile of late. It’s not all the fault of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. It’s been building for years.
There was always vitriol and mistrust on both sides of the political divide. At times, debate was stifled, lies were spread, and everywhere, Americans reacted to the slightest political dissent with rabid proclamations and vicious diatribes. Things have been ugly for a while when you think about it.
Hard to imagine that those were the good old days.
They Told Us Things Could Only Get Better
Ever since Trump latched on the GOP like a tick clinging to a dying skunk’s scrotum, things have switched gear. Democrats, ever mistrustful of GOP luminaries, have recoiled in genuine horror. What was supposed to be just another election year has turned into something debase, like an x-rated version of Barney that PBS never intended the general public to see.
Even the GOP faithful have struggled to embrace the notion that they have chosen, as their representative, a man with the integrity, texture, and hue of a three-day old Dorito. It all got too much for some. The lies, the misogyny, the racism, the manic tweets at 3 a.m. The sexual assaults.
They threw away their party badges, tore up their membership cards, and focused on supporting Republicans down the ticket instead. Some of them were fired for taking a stance. Some of them even endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
They got death threats for their trouble.
Freedom Isn’t Free
Brand Trump is so toxic that the vile rhetoric he espouses on a daily basis will linger in the body politic for years to come. He has given each and every American 1001 reasons to despise him, to denounce him, and to turn their backs on everything he stands for.
Yet to his hardcore fans, every slight is a media conspiracy, every mistake he makes is one eclipsed by the imagined monstrosities of the GOP’s very own princess of darkness: Hillary Clinton.
To them, anyone who dares to voice an opinion that does not match their own, needs to be silenced.
Such was the case with Amy Schumer during her performance last night in Tampa Bay, Florida. She told the audience:
“You know what I love? A famous guy that will just take me furniture shopping and just straight up grab my pussy.”
The crowd responded with loud boos and heckling. Unfazed, the 35-year-old comedian attempted to reason with them, saying:
“I know you’re here to laugh, but you know what, you choose your life, you choose the way you want to go in your life, and it’s just too important.”
Weapons Of Mass Desertion
Inviting a Trump supporter on stage, she asked him to explain why he intended to vote for Trump in the upcoming election. The answer he gave, seemed to satisfy her. She said:
“That was just cool to hear what one guy, who doesn’t seem like a psychopath, why he would want to vote for that orange, sexual-assaulting, fake-college-starting monster.”
At which point, according to the Tampa Bay Times, people started to leave in disgust.
In a statement following the show, Schumer thanked the 8,400 people who did not walk out. She added:
“We have always depended on comedians to make us laugh and tell the truth.”
One slight problem. Trump supporters have created their own truth, their own narrative. They have wrapped themselves in the warm velvet embrace of a fantasy world in which a man with a 4th grade vocabulary and the maturity to match it will somehow save them from a danger that does not really exist. In today’s America, and especially in this election, truth has ceased to be a common goal, it’s become a matter of perspective or a matter of expedience.
And that scares the shit out of me.
Watch Amy Schumer invite a Trump supporter on stage and try to reason with him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wymxvT9FKOc
Featured Image by 92YTribeca via Flickr under a CC BY-NC 2.0 license
